White House reporters assigned to President Joe Biden’s (D) travels in Japan and Australia may lose money because he chose to cancel the final part of the trip, according to a report.
News organizations apparently paid to charter a plane for the journalists to fly from Hiroshima to Sydney, The Washington Post reported Friday.
Biden ended his trip earlier than planned to return to the United States in order to continue negotiations regarding the debt ceiling.
“Biden leaves for Hiroshima on Wednesday to attend the G-7 Summit. However, he will reportedly return to the United States on Sunday, skipping planned visits to Papua New Guinea and Australia,” a Breitbart News article published Tuesday noted.
The Post report said the change of plans left media groups with a significant bill. There is now speculation that some managers may refrain from sending correspondents on such presidential trips in the future.
The outlet continued:
The now-canceled charter flight, organized by the White House Travel Office, cost $760,000, or about $14,000 for each of the 55 journalists who’d booked seats on it. Journalists will immediately lose their deposits, about $7,700 each, and may be on the hook for the rest, according to a memo sent to reporters on Wednesday by Tamara Keith, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association.
But a lengthy list of other costs — hotel reservations, ground transportation, a shared press-filing center, among them — may also be unrecoverable. And journalists will lose some or all of the cost of their return flights from Sydney to Washington, as they scramble for last-minute flights from Hiroshima to Washington.
“Bottom line: The bill for not going to Australia could run upward of $25,000 per person before any refunds kick in, according to several people involved in efforts to recover the money,” the outlet said.
The trip will reportedly be rescheduled, according to 7 News Australia:
Meanwhile, the canceled trips to Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Australia unsettled those who said Biden was squandering credibility in the region, according to Breitbart News.
Leaders of PNG declared a public holiday Monday to mark the presidential visit “which was seen as a major step toward countering China’s growing influence in the region,” Breitbart noted.
However, Biden’s decision to forgo the trip only reinforced “China’s propaganda about a dying United States that can no longer wield effective diplomatic or economic influence,” the report said.
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